


LCHS, Where Dreams And Adventures Begin!

by Flannel_and_Autism



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Middle School, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Bullying, Gen, all the protags are autistic, vent fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-03-06 07:11:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18846169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flannel_and_Autism/pseuds/Flannel_and_Autism
Summary: Welcome to Lumiose City High School, the most academically successful school in all of the Kalos Region! In your four-year journey through LCHS, you'll change from an unsure freshman to a confident senior, and in the meantime you'll experience many amazing things! Characterisation will be poor and any morally grey characters will be demonised for the sake of the plot in this amazing, well-renowned high school!OR: The one where I want to vent about all the shit that happens to me at school, so I make a high school AU that's a weird cross between the American and Australian school systems despite the fact that it takes place in the equivelant of France.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is like ... 900% vent fic. Can't be bothered finding ways to insert all this into the story so here's an infodump:
> 
> -pokemon are stil a thing in this au. it's just that the kids dont go and train them cause they have school.
> 
> -is this american high school? australian high school? honestly i dont know
> 
> -The way the school works is that there are four periods, each lasting eighty minutes. After each period is a fifteen-minute break, and lunch (between periods 3 and 4) is half an hour. On thursdays the kids go home early, but period 3 is only 40 minutes and there are only 2 breaks (one is 5 mins the other is 15). Probably seems unrealistic for france/america but it's how it is in my school so *shrug*
> 
> -Also the kids also conveniently go home early on thursday in middle school. Do middle schools have early days? Don't ask me I live in a country where high school starts at year 7 and middle school is a distant myth.
> 
> -Despite the title, it's not just the Kalos kids. pretty much all the protags + rivals + important npcs are here.
> 
> -This is tagged as both middle school au and high school au because all the pokemon protags are either age 10-12 (ie middle school age) or teenagers (ie high school age) and I didn't want to age up the younger ones. Honestly I probably shoulda just gone with the 'Strayan school system where year 7 starts high school ... but then the 10/11 yr olds would have to be in primary school and that would be kinda weird.
> 
> -Mostly focuses on the high school. Might make chapters focusing on the middle school students in the future.
> 
> -Kris and Lyra are sisters! Kris is in high school and Lyra is in middle school. Also I'm keeping the characters as the ages they are in the games they first appear even though time passes in the Pokemon world and logically Red can't be 11 when Hilda is 16 because BW is like 10ish years after FRLG
> 
> -this is probably shit but I wrote it to vent so don't judge
> 
> -also ive seen stuff about freshmans sharing classes with not-freshmans (is that a word) in american school but ... where i live all your classmates are always in the same year as you so I'm keeping it like that.
> 
> -For the sake of not making this note any longer than it already is, I won't say how old everyone is. I'll state how old the characters are and what year they're in in the notes of the first chapter in which they appear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes for this chapter: Rosa is 14 and a freshman! Hilda is a sophomore but she's like 16 because her birthday is earlier than Rosa's. May is 12 and in year 7.
> 
> The whole orange/say no to bullying thing is based on a thing we do in Australia where the colour orange inexplicably serves as an anti-bullying colour.

Her mind drifts back to the “say no to bullying” posters that were littered around the school some months prior, the way everyone covered each other in orange hairspray and then made jokes about losing their souls in favour of the cause. The National Kalosian Anti-Bullying Day was celebrated and honoured by the students of Lumiose City High School, and at least half of every lesson was devoted to learning about bullying instead of doing classwork.

But that was several months ago.

Now there’s no posters and no orange hairspray and no jokes about losing souls. A problem that everyone was so passionate about for that one day is ignored, and the people that wore their orange clothing so proudly are now the ones tormenting her.

She does not understand. They were friends two weeks ago! What’s changed?! Everyone was so welcoming when she had to transfer schools earlier in the year, but now they’ve finally gotten sick of her. Realised how awful she is deep down.

It’s with a heavy sigh that Rosa Bianca White recalls her Rhyhorn to its Poke Ball and walks inside. Pokemon aren’t allowed inside school grounds, in much the same way that phones aren’t -- obscure difficult-to-find out-of-date rules say that you have to leave them at home or give them in to the office before entering the class, but expecting anyone to do so is ridiculous. People send out their Pokemon in class all the time, and as long as they’re not disrupting the class nobody bats an eye. Still, a Rhyhorn is inconveniently large and inconveniently loud and would just attract more unwanted attention.

That’s honestly the last thing she needs.

Actually, scratch that, the last thing she needs is to be in school at all. Her hair’s probably not even enough, which means she’s going to get picked on, but she didn’t have time to fix it this morning -- she was already running late. She had been in a bit of a mood this morning, still sour and resentful about her fourth period class the on Wednesday

The class had been given laptops so they could research the answers to their questions, simple enough. She’d had laptops in other classes, but the science faculty had only recently obtained them, so she wasn’t completely sure what to do with them. She saw her friend -- or she thought they were friends, anyway -- Hugh moving them from the nearby desk into the charging case, so she assumed that was the correct thing to do.

Hugh found out about this mistake and yelled at her in front of the entire class -- about how she had one job, about how she was stupid and retarded, about how she couldn’t complete this simple task. She couldn’t handle it and burst into tears in front of the entire class, and they watched, some wanting to help but not knowing how, others not wanting to help at all.

The teacher stood there and did nothing, of course.

Her entire year hates her. They act nice to her face, sometimes, but the second she fucks up, they’re right behind her, yelling and teasing and acting like she’s the worst thing in the world. She hates it. Nobody’s perfect. They make mistakes, too, but nobody yells at them for it. It’s okay to make mistakes when you’re not autistic.

She talked about it yesterday, to her sophomore friend Hilda. “You need to tell someone about this,” the older girl had insisted. “You should tell a teacher.”

“And what are the teachers going to do?” Rosa had protested. “Hypnotise them and make them like me?”

“Suspend them,” Hilda had answered, not missing a beat. “Expel them, if it keeps happening. Hey, you said some of them are on the SRC, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Rosa. A large number of freshmen had been chosen to join the Students Representative Council based on their academic performance in middle school, so that the people in charge of making decisions would be aware of the youngest, most vulnerable people in the school. Rosa would have been selected, probably, but she hadn’t been at the school when they were chosen. Maybe next year.

“Tell me their names,” said Hilda, who was also in the SRC. “And I’ll tell Mr Sycamore and if they keep it up they’ll get booted off.”

Rosa shook her head. “I don’t want to get people in trouble.”

“Well, sometimes you have to. They’re bullying you, Rosa. They’re not allowed to do that.”

“It’s not bullying!” Rosa had insisted.

“Then what is it?”

Rosa hadn’t been able to answer that. But Hilda had important sophomore work to do and it was Thursday, meaning the students got to go home over an hour earlier than usual in exchange for one of the periods being forty minutes instead of eighty, and the lunch break was fifteen minutes instead of thirty.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” suggested Hilda before going back to her work. “During one of the breaks.”

Of course they would talk during one of the breaks -- they shared exactly zero classes, and because they were in different years they wouldn’t share classes except in rare special circumstances. They didn’t even have each other’s phone numbers, so they couldn’t exactly text each other in class.

Rosa didn’t point this out; she just nodded and put her earphones back in and walked off.

She’s not really sure if it is bullying, to be honest. It’s the whole year, everyone she shares a class with constantly picking her apart and giving her a hard time, but it’s rarely the same person twice, and they’re not going out of their way to seek her out and hurt her. Bullying has to be repetitive, right? It’s not bullying unless the same person does it repeatedly. It’s just general assholery, and the teachers aren’t obligated to do anything about that.

Besides, even if it is bullying, nobody’s going to treat it as such. The teachers think bullies are just unconfident and unhappy with who they are and they just find someone weaker than them to pick on and use as an emotional punching bag. And maybe that’s true sometimes. But sometimes it’s not.

Sometimes they just look at her and only see her weirdness, her quirks, her lack of social skills. Sometimes they don’t see that she’s a person. Sometimes they genuinely think that it’s okay to bully her, because they’re just teaching her to be normal, right? She can’t feel it it anyway, she’s not even human. She can’t be, humans don’t act like that.

Fucking bitches.

The teachers are always happy to turn a blind eye when the autistic kids are the ones getting bullied. Arceus forbid the kids attempt to fight back, though. That would be awful.

As she was walking out of the school yesterday, she saw some familiar faces. They were May Marina Sapphire and Dawn Amethyst Platinum, her friends from middle school. They all went to middle school together, and made friends despite being in different years. They always used to walk home together, and somehow they had managed to continue the tradition even after Rosa left for high school -- who was there varied from day to day, but they passed the high school on their way home, and they could make it in time to wait for her if they ran.

“You okay?” May had asked. “You were really upset yesterday.”

She had been, honestly, and May had seen her. She had walked home with tear tracks running down her face after Hugh’s berating of her in science class, and May and Lyra had been waiting for Lyra’s older sister, so they were forced to separate before they could find out what was wrong.

“Yeah,” Rosa had mumbled. And finally, she said it:

“I’m being bullied.”

It was an empowering realisation, in a way -- they weren’t just punishing her for existing, they weren’t just being jerks in a way that couldn’t possibly harm her. They were bullying her, and that wasn’t okay.

Looking back at the school gate in front of her, she sighs. She’s really not looking forward to today. But she has little other choice. Full of dread and anxiety, but also determination, she steps into the school.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dawn & May are 12 and in year 7! Wally is 10, he should be in year 6 but he skipped a year because he was finding the work too easy. Is that realistic? No. Do I care? No.

A flash of orange and white whizzes past her, and she can recognise it easily as her friend’s jacket. Barry’s excited, clearly, which is no surprise; this is his favourite subject, his one chance to burn off his seemingly limitless energy. What Dawn Amethyst Platinum does not understand is how the fuck she’s meant to play this game.

It’s called “Ultimate Ball” or something stupid and non-descriptive like that, and they’re on a basketball court throwing a football around. Whoever’s holding the ball stays still and throws it to someone else, and occaisionally someone yells at someone else and the other team gets the ball.

Perhaps she would know how to play if she had actually paid attention earlier in the year when the teacher had explained the game, and then participated in the game to learn the rules. But she hadn’t; she had just sat on the bench and read a book. She wanted to sit on a bench and read a book now, in fact, but the teacher had said she had to participate or she would get in trouble.

The girls never do much in games like this, mostly because all the boys are hogging the ball, so the teacher always has stupid rules like “It must touch a girl before you can score” and “A girl has to be the one who physically scores a try”. May is a girl, and on Dawn’s team, so she decides to stand near her. Maybe then it will appear that she knows what she’s doing.

May is desperately trying to be in position to catch the ball, but Brendan is blocking her way and she’s short. Barry frowns, glancing at her, and then sees Dawn. He throws the ball, and she catches it.

The next thing she knows everyone is yelling.

“You won the game,” says Wally, who is the only one who cares little enough to be coherent despite the victory. “You scored a goal by catching the ball.”

“Oh,” says Dawn, who’s not entirely sure how she did that.

Well, it’s not every day that the class nerd singlehandedly wins a game purely by accident.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has literally nothing to do with Pokemon but I wrote it to vent about school so *shrug*. Also it's a poem so I guess you can pretend Rosa wrote it.
> 
> I meant it to be interpreted very literally as an analogy of how my classmates treat me in PE class, but it also applies in a more metaphorical sense to the way many autistic people are denied opportunities because people assume we're incapable.
> 
> Warning: Contains an uncensored use of the r-slur

I wave out my arms, I'm having great fun  
They won't pass the ball, they think I can't run

The other team scores, we know we're outmatched  
They won't pass the ball, they think I can't catch

They pass it to everyone else except me,  
They won't pass the ball, they think I can't see

They always avoid me, the message is clear  
They won't pass the ball, they think that I'm weird

They laugh at my anger, they treat me like scum  
They won't pass the ball, they think that I'm dumb

I hear a weird joke and I laugh till I wheeze,  
They won't pass the ball, they think I'm diseased

They say to just wait, I've been waiting for ages,  
They won't pass the ball, they think I'm contaigous

I say I could score and I'm being stuck-up  
They won't pass the ball, they think I'm a fuck-up

They'd rather the game go back to where it started  
They won't pass the ball, they think I'm retarded

They miss trying to throw it over my head  
They could pass to me, but they'll just lose instead

Again and again the other team scores  
And I say we'd win if they passed to me more

They deny it, of course, but spare me a glance  
They don't inform me that I get just one chance

They finally pass it and I'm caught off guard  
They won't let me practice, so catching is hard

My stance is all wrong, I stumble and fall  
And after that nobody passes the ball

They taunt me and mock me and act so sadistic  
They won't pass the ball, they know I'm autistic

 


End file.
